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EU border control chief: Sovereignty not at risk from new patrol force

Countries should not fear losing sovereign powers under a European Commission proposal for a new EU border force, the head of the bloc’s current frontier patrol agency said Thursday.

“Sovereignty is not at stake” in the proposal, Frontex chief Fabrice Leggeri told POLITICO in an interview in the agency’s Brussels office. He said the severity of the refugee crisis, with thousands of asylum-seekers entering Europe every day from the Middle East, required dramatic action.

“What kind of sovereignty do they have now when they have 20,000 migrants arriving in one week and they cannot stop and check them?” Leggeri said of EU countries. “What kind of sovereignty is this?”

EU leaders were set to discuss the Commission proposal Thursday in a year-end summit discussion on migration. Several countries have expressed concerns that the new plan would encroach on their national law-enforcement and border control powers.

The new European Border and Coast Guard Agency would have the power to intervene “in urgent situations” if it believes countries are failing to guard their external frontiers effectively.

That’s a major step forward from the current mandate of Frontex, which has had mainly coordination powers, leaving the actual protection of borders to individual EU member countries. The project has the backing of France and Germany but other countries like Greece, Sweden and Poland, have expressed doubts.

European Council President Donald Tusk, speaking ahead of the summit, said that sovereignty concerns on the part of countries had to be taken into account, but added that “Europe cannot remain vulnerable when Schengen states are not able to effectively protect their borders. If we reject the Commission’s proposal, we will have to find another, but I am afraid, an equally painful solution.”

Leggeri, a 47-year-old French bureaucrat, said the new proposal includes “checks and balances” to avoid stepping on national powers. He said the agency would make border-control recommendations to member countries based on “risk analysis” but that if the country concerned did not act to implement them, “the Commission can step in and we are all bound by the treaties.”

Despite the resistance from some countries, Leggeri said he is confident the proposal will go ahead.

“I understand the concerns but policy makers have to decide whether they want to save the well-functioning of the [Schengen] free movement area or if they want the EU to remain in the middle of the road.”

He said the current debate over Schengen was similar to the one over the euro — it cannot be done only halfway. “Either you have a common currency or you do not have a common currency but you cannot say that we have partially a common currency or partially a free movement area,” he said.

The Schengen area has been put under serious strain by the refugee crisis, with Germany seeing an influx of 1.5 million people this year and several countries temporarily reintroducing internal border checks.

One of the major tests for the Schengen area has been Greece’s reluctance to call for EU help to deal with the refugee flows across its border. Some countries wanted to suspend Greece from the passport-free area. But Athens finally agreed to consider accepting EU help in patrolling its borders.

As a result of that decision, Frontex has been negotiating the deployment of Rapid Border Intervention Teams (Rabits) in the Aegean islands that would boost the presence of Frontex officers there. Frontex has drafted an operational plan, submitted to Athens on Monday morning, and the deadline for a final agreement is Thursday at midnight.

Leggeri on Thursday was still hammering out the details, receiving text messages from Greece during the interview. “Before signing it I have to be sure that the host member state, Greece, agrees and now I am waiting for their reply,” he said.

Asked what would happen if Greece does not agree, he smiled and said, “What I can say is that the agency is ready. We did the job.”